<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Anchor by mooglecharm (morphaileffect)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457690">Anchor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/mooglecharm'>mooglecharm (morphaileffect)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Blind Ignis Scientia, Gen, Hurt Ignis Scientia, M/M, Protective Gladiolus Amicitia, Romance if you squint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:41:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457690</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/mooglecharm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Since he was little, Ignis has hated seeming weak in front of others. But sometimes his body betrays him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gladiolus Amicitia &amp; Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Anchor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The strain took over slowly. At first he thought it was a weight he could comfortably carry. They wouldn’t give an innocent, little six-year-old boy more to bite off than he could chew, would they?</p><p>But before he knew it, he was eight. He had gone through two years of schoolwork that was more advanced for someone of his age. He was already being included in parties to receive dignitaries, to test his understanding of rules of decorum and the intricate rituals that made up life in the royal court.</p><p>He was eight, and he made a mistake. He stumbled over formal words of greeting. The Galahdian retinue, fortunately, found it charming. But after introductions, Ignis was pulled to one side by his Protocol teacher.</p><p>“What was that?” he was asked. “Do you think you could have gotten away with that, in the company of other Lords? Of Niflheim nobility, for example? What would the King say if he were here to see that?”</p><p>Ignis fought to stay standing up straight. The Hand of the Heir to the throne of Lucis never cried, he told himself. He took his teachers’ criticism as constructive, always, and turned every mistake into an opportunity to improve.</p><p>And to make everything that much worse (or better?), the Crown Prince actually looked up to him. Ignis had a smaller, more impressionable mind observing him, following him around, believing with all his pure heart that Ignis would never make a mistake, would always know how to do things the right way.</p><p>But air was having trouble entering his chest. Ignis didn’t know when it started, exactly, but at eight years old, it had gotten so bad he could no longer ignore it: when he was under stress, he had trouble breathing, sometimes came close to passing out.</p><p>And he couldn’t let anyone know.</p><p>So when it happened, he retreated to the nearest quiet place available. And, in isolation, tried to calm himself.</p><p>Breathing exercises helped, he read in a book once. But he wondered if it was the breathing exercises or the solitude that actually made a difference.</p><p>Sometimes, when it became too difficult, tears escaped his eyes. Surely they weren’t tears of panic, or loneliness, or anger. The Hand of the Prince never felt such things in excess.</p><p>Those tears were purely from exertion. That was all.</p><p>They came out that day, the day when he messed up in greeting the Galahdian retinue. He hid himself away in a small office that happened to be unlocked, and tried to steady his breathing there. It was getting worse, he realized, the tears were flowing more freely.</p><p>But he had forgotten to lock the door and someone entered that office, found him furiously wiping his eyes dry.</p><p>That someone was an older boy - the son of the King’s Shield. He was also part of the welcoming committee, as an Amicitia - a family whose presence in every event meant military involvement.</p><p>And the Amicitia boy didn’t even have a good excuse for following him into the office. “Ignis Scientia, right?” he had greeted. He’d seen Ignis get chewed out by his Protocol teacher, he said, and had become worried when Ignis disappeared from the gathering. He’d decided to go out looking.</p><p>He wasn’t standard nobility. He spoke formal Lucian well enough, but also spoke with a touch of roughness, as if a part of him resisted rules of court.</p><p>“You all right?” the boy eventually asked.</p><p>Ignis nodded, still catching his breath.</p><p>Ignis was leaning back against the office desk. The Amicitia boy stood next to him and leaned back as well. “You don’t look all right,” he observed.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Ignis said, almost irritably. He remembered that the Hand of the Prince never became angry. Not when there was no real point to anger.</p><p>But he was gripping the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles were turning white. Somehow, the boy noticed this.</p><p>Without asking first, the Amicitia boy took one of his hands and held it in his own.</p><p>Ignis didn’t even know what was going on, much less how to stop it.</p><p>“You’re not,” the Amicitia boy corrected, looking into Ignis’ eyes. “Breathe.”</p><p>His golden-brown eyes were so serious, so <em>steady</em>, that Ignis found himself latching on to the sight of them.</p><p>And the grip on his hand was mercifully tight, as if it would never let go first, not even if Ignis lost strength in his knees, or if he failed to even out his breathing.</p><p>The boy stayed quietly with him until he was better. That was the only time he let go.</p><p>Afterwards, he accompanied Ignis back to the gathering, because he wanted to make sure Ignis was okay.</p><p>Ignis asked him to keep what he had just witnessed a secret. The boy readily agreed...as long as Ignis promised to call or come looking for him if “that thing” happened again.</p><p>Ignis simply nodded. But never did call or come looking.</p><p>From time to time he and the Amicitia boy found their paths crossing, and the Amicitia boy would ask how he was doing. But Ignis would always coldly answer that he was well.</p><p>For a while, it ate away at Ignis to know that there was <em>one person</em> in the whole world who knew how vulnerable the Hand of the Prince actually was.</p><p>And it made him promise to himself that he would be better. Stronger. So he would never be so vulnerable in front of anyone again.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Over a decade after the last time “that thing” happened, it recurred.</p><p>Ignis supposed it was to be expected. He no longer had his vision. After pushing himself past his limits, Noct had been asleep for days. Altissia was in ruins.</p><p>Lady Lunafreya was dead.</p><p>He had made so many mistakes.</p><p>He should not have let Noct go off alone, even with all the strength of the royal arms. Should have anticipated that the confrontation with the Empire would be far more complicated than initially thought. Should have foreseen that assassinating the Oracle was in the Chancellor’s plans -</p><p>But his head was in a muddle. He was twenty-two years old. He felt as if he was eight, and adrift in a sea of events he could barely comprehend. Overwhelmed by the consequences of not knowing any better.</p><p>(Noct had always looked up to him. Even when he was older, and no longer liked being told what to do. He always had faith Ignis would know best, would do things the right way. Always.)</p><p>Nothing was going as planned and nothing was making sense.</p><p>That was why the first thing he did, after getting back on his feet, was make sure he knew all the quiet spaces. The rooms that no one entered, the utterly silent corners.</p><p>Then he made another mistake.</p><p>He thought Gladio would no longer come looking for him.</p><p>He came to recognize the sounds that Gladio made, things he never noticed before...things like the squeak of his shoes, the cadence of his footfalls, the way his heavy limbs cut through still air. The way his breath caught in his throat when he entered a room and saw Ignis there, alone.</p><p>He couldn’t see Gladio’s eyes anymore.</p><p>But he could remember the many, many times the man’s steady gaze searched his for any sign of pain.</p><p>He felt Gladio standing next to him, saying nothing...noticing, perhaps, that his presence wasn’t welcome. That Ignis’ eyes, hidden behind dark glasses at the moment, had been filled with the tears that came from the effort of trying to breathe (and nothing else, surely, no other excess).</p><p>Ignis was much better at not being vulnerable in front of others now. He had damn well better be.</p><p>Still, Gladio reached for his hand. His grip was mercifully tight.</p><p>And Ignis felt his breathing ease, the muscles in his shoulders loosen, his tears stop struggling to escape.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>